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When you're an expat in China, you find that the "New Year season" is exceptionally long.

Anywhere from three to seven weeks after the "real" New Year's Day on Jan. 1 comes Chinese New Year. This year it was on Jan. 26, so from late December until well into February, I was saying "Happy New Year!" In fact, even this week, having just returned to school after a six-week break, I was wishing HNY to people that I hadn't seen since "last year" (Jan. 9).

And today is, apparently, the start of Losar, the Tibetan New Year. So to all my Zang friends, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It's also Ash Wednesday in the western church, start of the Lenten season. For the few Eastern Orthodox who celebrate it, Ash Wednesday will be a week later, because Easter is a week later on the Eastern Orthodox calendar.

And that brings me to my point: Aside from astronomical and meteorological considerations (solstices, say, or blizzards) what day is what is just a matter of convention. Every day is the first day of the next year of your life.

When I send birthday greetings to friends on Facebook, I usually say, "May you be well and happy for the coming year of your life." (Oddly, many Asian cultures consider people one year older on new Year's, not on the day of their birth, so they might find this strange.)

But we need a celebration of birth (or rebirth). New Year dates are arbitrary, some in spring, some in summer, some in autumn, some in the dead of winter.

As stated on Wikipedia, Mircea Eliade in The Myth of the Eternal Return said that "by the logic of the eternal return, each New Year ceremony was the beginning of the world for [archaic] peoples. According to Eliade, these peoples felt a need to return to the Beginning at regular intervals, turning time into a circle." It's when chaos becomes cosmos. (More on this thought here)

So EVERY day is New Year. EVERY day is Ash Wednesday for some, Easter for others.

Tomorrow morning, after the "little death" of sleep, wake up and tell yourself, "Happy New Year! Happy birthday! Today is my day!"

I'm nearing the end of The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho (more on that later), and he's just told the story of King Midas. It's a cautionary tale: Midas was given one wish by the god Dionysus, and in his greed he asked that everything he touch turn to gold. The end is well-known: even his food and drink are turned to gold and, in Coelho's version, he dies of hunger and thirst in a week. (In some versions he learns his lesson and Dionysus restores him to normalcy).

From this story, we get the expression "the Midas touch," which is commonly considered a good thing. One of my favorite resources, The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (at Amazon), says that, "A person who is very successful or easily acquires riches is sometimes said to have a "Midas touch.'"

Now isn't that odd? Greed is one of Christianity's "Seven Deadly Sins," and the first of Buddhism's "Three Poisons." And yet we speak admiringly of someone with a "Midas touch."

Slow learners?

Questions:1. How did a fatal condition (greed-induced death through "The Midas Touch") become a praiseworthy skill?2. It's often said "Money can't buy happiness." Do you believe that? Why or why not?3. Does Midas's "sin" lie in becoming rich? Or in taking shortcuts? Or in valuing gold above everything? Or in something else?

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Use the above questions for personal reflection, for group discussion, or for "jump starting" a comment (click "Comments" above to begin).

Over on eduFire a member asked: "If you were giving your last lecture, what would you say?"

Here's the answer I posted:

PAY ATTENTION! Mindful participation in your own life is the key to everything.PLAY NICE! Compassionate involvement with others is the key to everything.WISE UP! Developing wisdom in any way possible is the key to everything.

Yes, I know: I said they were ALL the key to everything, but only because...THEY ARE!

Lila and I will do a moviethon this weekend and try to catch up on most of the nominees. We've seen The Reader, and she couldn't find Milk when she went to the DVD town this week. But we'll try to slog through the other three.

Meanwhile, a few questions for those of you who have seen them all (or at least most of them): 1. Which of these films had the most meaning for you? Why? 2. What other films of 2008 (not on this list) were particularly significant for you? Why? 3. If you were to establish an award for "Most Meaningful Picture of 2008," whether on this list or not, what would it be? Why? 4. If you were to establish an award for "Most Meaningful Picture of All Time," from this or any year, what would it be? Why? ———-- Please limit your answers to films you have actually seen!

HumanisticSpirituality

Who doesn't want to be happy? Humanistic Spirituality embraces and explores all paths--religion, the arts, film and literature, philosophy, science, current events, one’s own intuition--as ways of achieving happiness (the layman's word for "enlightenment").